Put your hair up and square up.
Daria Rae Berenato (born September 24, 1993) is an American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist. She is signed to WWE, performing on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Sonya Deville.
Berenato was a contestant in the 2015 season of WWE Tough Enough, being eliminated third. In October 2015, she signed a contract with WWE and was assigned to their developmental brand NXT to begin her training. Initially competing under her real name, she usually came up short; however, after re-debuting under the new ring name Sonya Deville, she would begin a winning streak and enter a feud with Ruby Riot.
Deville would make her WWE main roster debut on November 2017 alongside Mandy Rose as the new associates of Paige, with the trio's name being revealed as Absolution. In April 2018, Paige retired from in-ring competition due to neck injuries, dissolving Absolution, but Deville would continue her alliance with Rose as the two remained a tag team.
After eventually splitting up with and feuding against Rose, Deville lost a "Loser Leaves WWE" match to her at SummerSlam 2020 and took time off from wrestling to deal with personal issues. When she returned at the start of 2021, she became an on-screen authority figure alongside Adam Pearce, trading her ring gear for a sharp suit. While initially seeming neutral, she quickly established herself as a heel through petty abuses of power against female competitors such as Naomi and Bianca Belair, stacking the deck via her official powers to achieve in-ring success with minimal effort. Due to her actions, Pearce terminated her role as a WWE official on the May 9, 2022 edition of Raw.
Deville continues to compete on Raw as an in-ring competitor; she is currently on hiatus due to a torn ACL. On July 17, 2023, she won the Women's Tag Team Championship titles alongside Chelsea Green, the first championship of her career.
Put your tropes up and square up:
- Alliterative Name: She tried for a while to get "Daddy Deville" to catch on as a nickname for her, but it didn't quite do so (although she still uses it on social media).
- Ambiguously Gay: Zig-zagged — as in, Sonya being gay is not ambiguous at all, but it's occasionally been implied (though not openly stated) that she has romantic feelings for her friend Mandy Rose. She voluntarily gave up her spot in a Money in the Bank for Mandy's benefit, said she'd sooner eliminate herself in the Royal Rumble than fight Mandy for a WrestleMania title opportunity and for a time, she and Mandy would enter the ring and/or celebrate by holding and caressing each other in intimate ways.note
- Blood Knight: Agrees to join Peyton Royce and Billie Key against Ember Moon, Liv Morgan, and Aliyah since it means she gets a chance to beat people up. Naturally, she's the one who ate the pinfall.
- Braids of Action: Typically has her hair in either this, a Tomboyish Ponytail, or a combo of the two, which goes with her professional MMA fighter gimmick.
- Catchphrase: "Put your hair up and square up."
- Cowardly Boss: Since becoming a WWE Official, she's shown shades of this in her feud with Naomi, relying on dirty tactics such as ordering the bell rung at the first opportunity in matches or getting Shayna Baszler to wrestle as her proxy (in matches with heavily unfair stipulations), seemingly going out of her way to avoid actually facing Naomi in the ring herself. During the 2022 Royal Rumble, she sat at ringside until the number of competitors became small enough, and then, after being eliminated, waited until Naomi was knocked to the outside of the ring apron before grabbing her feet and pulling her to the floor.
- Dressed Like a Dominatrix: Sonya's new in-ring gear in 2021 is basically an incredibly dark version of this trope.
- Foil:
- To Stephanie McMahon. In 2021, she returned as an on-screen authority figure wearing business attire, much like some other women before her, most notably Stephanie. Initially, Sonya wasn't particularly heelish and could come across as a Reasonable Authority Figure (similar to Stephanie's run as General Manager back in the early 2000's). However, she has since become more of a heel, particularly in her feud with Naomi, much like how Stephanie would become a more detestable heel character as the years of her on-screen career progressed. The difference, of course, being that Sonya was and still is officially an actual wrestling talent, while Stephanie, despite having decent enough ability for someone in her position, was never actually an official wrestler as such. It's also worth noting that both women, during their time as authority figures, when making their long awaited return to in-ring action, opted for dark coloured dominatrix style attires (Stephanie at SummerSlam 2014 and Sonya against Naomi on an episode of SmackDown), further reflecting the similarity between their characters.
- To Becky Lynch. Sometime after Becky began referring to herself as "The Man", Sonya also began calling herself "Daddy Deville" as a response. However, while Becky has adopted a more masculine personality and wardrobe over time, Sonya has gone in the opposite direction (see Girliness Upgrade below). Despite her intentions to copy Becky's tomboyish gimmick, Sonya's character has ironically become increasingly feminine in recent years.
- Girliness Upgrade:
- Downplayed. She still has an overall tomboy look (some of her out-of-the-ring wear would make Raven proud), but after her main roster debut she seemed to progressively ditch her Braids of Action and Tomboyish Ponytail hairstyles in favor of conventionally femenine straight hair, making her lean more towards Tomboy with a Girly Streak. Just compare before
◊ and after◊. - She's had another one of these yet again in late 2021. After having spent most of that year taking a turn towards an androgynous look by wearing business attire, her new ring attire as of her return to in-ring action is essentially a dominatrix costume◊, complete with a shiny black all body suit, copious amounts of eyeshadow, lipstick, and nail polish. Her status as an in-ring wrestler and tough ex-MMA fighter has also been downplayed in favour of making her a devious and somewhat cowardly authority figure, constantly hiding behind other muscle to help her in her feud with Naomi. At this point, she leans more towards dark feminine than tomboy.
- Downplayed. She still has an overall tomboy look (some of her out-of-the-ring wear would make Raven proud), but after her main roster debut she seemed to progressively ditch her Braids of Action and Tomboyish Ponytail hairstyles in favor of conventionally femenine straight hair, making her lean more towards Tomboy with a Girly Streak. Just compare before
- The Gloves Come Off: When she has an opponent on the ropes or gets pissed, she takes off her gloves and unloads punches.
- Green-Eyed Monster: How she was overshadowed by Mandy. She secretly allied with Dolph Ziggler to keep Otis away from Mandy, and she would manipulate her in the early 2020. She tries to apologize to her former friend, only to call her a selfish human being. She would later rants on her that she has no talent. Desperate enough, she vows to ruin Mandy's life.
- I Know Karate: She's a trained MMA fighter.
- Incompatible Orientation: Part of EC3's (ultimately ill-fated) WWE main roster run had him trying to hit on Deville and Mandy Rose, telling them that he was a hot commodity while also complimenting them by telling them that they must know what "hot" is. While it was quite on point to try his luck with Mandy, who has a seductress gimmick, EC3 was also directing this at Sonya (he turns to her in particular when he says "hot"), despite at this point being well-established that Sonya was a lesbian.
- Informed Ability: The commentators play up the fact that she was previously a MMA fighter. Although she does have some respectable training and it shows on her wrestling matches, the company tries its best to not bring up Sonya's actual fight record, which is 2-1 (still a winning record, but hardly Ronda Rousey).
- Kicked Upstairs: At least in storyline. Ever since the incidents that triggered her 2020 hiatus, she made her onscreen return as an official/GM-in-all-but-name and hasn't stepped in the ring to compete since.
- Lady in a Power Suit: In 2019 and 2020, she presented a look consisting of an all-black suit, which won the Internet's approval instantaneously. She has since mixed up the colors every now and again, but this has become her normal look on WWE programming.
- Light Feminine Dark Feminine: Following yet another Girliness Upgrade in 2021, Sonya is now the all black wearing dominatrix/shady business lady dark feminine to Naomi's bright-coloured light feminine in their feud, fittingly with Naomi as the underdog babyface against Sonya's authority figure.
- Paper Tiger: Her first few appearances on NXT TV had her being defeated rather easily despite her MMA background. Averted once she took a hiatus, changed her name and came back, becoming a full-on Wrestling Monster.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She has one to her former best friend Mandy Rose on April 18, 2020 of SmackDown, as she grown tired of her stealing the spotlight:Deville: You might be pretty, but you're nothing but a dime's a dozen bottled blonde who looks like she was created in some sort of lab. Do you know what it feels like to work, and work, and work five long years of my life? Wasted, trying to be second best to what some eye candy that's absolutely NO talent! You have no talent!
- Revenge: After Peyton and Billie abandoned her in their match against Ember, Liv, and Aliyah, she attempted to get even with a match against Billie, but Peyton interfered and Daria lost.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Sonya (the tough MMA fighter) is the tomboy to pretty blonde Mandy Rose's girly girl.
- Sonya Deville (girly girl) and Becky Lynch (tomboy). Despite her efforts to copy Becky's "The Man" persona with her "Daddy Deville" nickname on social media, Sonya has actually had somewhat of a Girliness Upgrade over time, opting for more feminine outfits than she used to wear and having her status as a tough fighter be downplayed, in contrast to Becky's Tomboyness Upgrade.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Typically has her hair in either this, Braids of Action, or a combo of the two, which goes with her professional MMA fighter gimmick.
- Too Dumb to Live: Not really smart to say "a single person in that locker room that's gonna make her get out of this ring." Not when you have Ronda Rousey.
- We Used to Be Friends: With Mandy Rose.
